The LeadNow Conference is a great Conference being held next week in Dallas, Texas. This event has a great line-up of speakers including: George Barna, Francis Chan, Mark Batterson, Matt Chandler, Anne Jackson, Slam Poet Amena Brown and more. LeadNow is calling this generation to trade in their pursuit of the American Dream for a world that desperately needs Christ.!

To learn more about the LeadNow Conference and their desire to create a movement of traders click here.

If you would like a chance to win a free ticket maybe even a pair of tickets to LeadNow (each valued at $249) you can do so right here at BigIsTheNewSmall.com. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 1.) Subscribe to BigIsTheNewSmall.com 2.) Find my tweet @scottwilliams offering a chance to “Win A FREE Ticket To LeadNow Conference” and re-tweet it. 3.) Post a comment right here stating “I have subscribed, re-tweeted and would like to go to LeadNow.” You can also share if there is a particular speaker you would really like to hear from. If you don’t have Twitter, you’re still eligible to win by simply commenting.

Be sure to use and follow the hashtag #RN09 (RightNow 2009) for all of the LeadNow conference happenings. Everyone who comments will have a chance to win. Comments will be accepted until 11:59p.m. central Saturday Oct. 31st. READY, SET, GO!

Success is defined as: the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; a successful performance or achievement; the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like; person or thing that is successful.

One thing that is true for successful people is this fact: at some point they start to believe they will be successful. Similar to “Think Happy Thoughts!” there is “Think Successful Thoughts, Think Successful Thoughts!”

Below are some successful thoughts that I try to always think and I’m sure many others think similarly.

7 Thoughts For Success

God believes I will be successful, it’s up to me to prove Him wrong.

I can’t control what people think, only what I do.

I expect the best will always happen.

I’m the Little Engine That Could, “I Think I Can, I Think I Can!”

I will learn from failures and mistakes, I’ll get em’ next time.

I will learn from successful people, How do you do what you do?

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Phil. 4:13

Share your thoughts on these thoughts for success. What are some successful thoughts that you find yourself thinking? Is it difficult to think for success?

The longer I live; the more and more I realize the importance of having good interpersonal skills. I will refer to interpersonal skills as i-Skills, (because I’m cool like that.)

As I was sitting at this restaurant in Austin last night, the waiter reminded me of the effect that great interpersonal skills can have on a situation. I have eaten at three different restaurants over the last three days and my water/waitresses had a wide range of interpersonal skills. The guy last night whose name was Ben had superb i-Skills and my entire experience at the Moonshine restaurant was superb. I don’t remember the names of the other two wait staff and my experience was simply okay.

Ben made us want to be around him and the environment, we felt good and his tip reflected how good we felt. Money well spent. This same thought process is true for all of our human interactions. Do I want to be around you? Do you create a positive environment? No one wants to be around individuals with lackluster i-Skills. If the person with the poor i-Skills is the leader it just further complicates the situation; their rotten i-Skills can actually ruin the entire barrel.

i-Skills For Dummies

i-Skills- refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social communications and interaction to reach certain effects or results. The term i-Skills is often used in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person’s ability to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions. i-Skills are how people relate to one another, it even applies to the online/social-media interactions.

Having positive i-Skills increases the productivity in the organization and the number of conflicts are reduced. When conflicts do arise, they are handled in a healthy manner, therefore reducing the awkwardness. In informal situations, it allows communication to be easy and comfortable. People with good i-Skills can generally control the feelings that emerge in difficult situations and respond appropriately, instead of being overwhelmed by emotion. Positive i-Skills create more Positive i-Skills.

The bottom line is, Your i-Skills Matter. If you know someone with poor i-Skills, help them to improve. If your i-Skills need some work, take an i-SkillsFor Dummies Class… you can find one in a mirror near you!

I know that Kanye West joke about Beyonce having the best video of All-Time is played out and has been over-used; however it’s still funny. This post is a simple post sharing 5 Basic Twitter Tips.

These tips are not according to Kanye, but according to me, they are the best of the decade… 5 Best Twitter Tips of All-Time: (insert interruption)

Take A Picture, It Will Last Longer – Make sure that your profile pic. is a real picture of you or your brand’s logo. The pic. should be a tight shot, preferably a head-shot, no full-lengths or far-away shots. Don’t waste your time with the Avatars; you’re too unique to have some computer-generated version of you. Your profile pic. is one of the most important aspects of your twitter profile. Tweeps need to know who you are before they connect with you or listen to what you have to say.

Repeat What I Just Said – If you want to be re-tweeted there are a some things to keep in mind: Leave 18-20 characters available in your tweet; in addition to tweeting valuable, breaking, interesting, funny, inspiring, random and consistently good content.

You’ve Got Mail, You’ve Got Me Confused – Don’t confuse Twitter with e-mail. Stop thinking that you have to answer every tweet, read every tweet and when you miss some tweets stop feeling like your inbox is full. ImagineTwitter as a River and Not as a Lake… Twitter is not email!

What’s My Name – You should use your real name or brand name as your Twitter @ name. If your real name is not available, try using some combination of your name with the underscore or last name first etc. Similar to the dot.com boom, getting your name will prove to be valuable as time progresses; go ahead and secure your kids names as well. No one really understands your attempted cool names like: @mrbigshotguru@livingforchangetoday@johniscool@itweetabunch@MrsMrsexymama… Even President @BarackObama uses his real name.

Remember The Platinum Rule – Platinum is more precious and popular than gold, so we will change the rule formally known as The Golden Rule. The bottom line is treat people how you want to be treated: respond when necessary, occasionally RT others, be helpful, be nice, don’t be a twitter snob, be kind, have a sense of humor, don’t be a jerk (insert song) “You’re A Jerk!” etc.

I know some of you reading this may be thinking that your Twitter Tips are better, but hold on one second… Imma’ let you finish. These are the 5 Best Twitter Tips Of All-Time!

Share your thoughts on these 5 Tips or add your favorites to the list.

I generally have a list of bullet points about things I want to write about and sometimes the things on the list are not inspiring me at the time I sit down to write, so I just don’t write about them and if you have made it this far in this blogpost then you realize that this post is going to be a long run-on ranting sentence and somewhat of a mind dump of what’s going on going on inside my head and as the title suggests this is a method of How To Unleash What’s Inside Your Head, I’m typing this from my hotel room in Austin, where I’m here for a national juvenile justice training for the Governor’s Board that I’m a member of, I like and don’t like traveling at the same time, I miss my family when I leave, I love traveling when I’m with my family, SportCenter generally runs continuous when Im in a hotel room, I will not even spell-check or re-read this so it will be very random, I am always reading, thinking and dreaming, leaders should be less worried about trying to prove themselves to their boss and more time trying to produce results, do the right thing and prove to their followers that they are worthy of following, my son has a football game tomorrow that was originally scheduled for Thurs. and I’m gonna miss it, change is not always good; however it’s inevitable; only in the dictionary does success come before work, Mondays are always a great day to push the reset button, reset and go, I am not sure why you shouldn’t get to big for your britches, I personally think you should outgrow your britches, If I put everything that I think on paper you would think that I was either crazy or you would be tired, sigh, I will probably tweet about some juvenile justice topics this week, one of the breakout sessions is about the updates, trends and statuses of prison rapes, That took me back to my old days as a prison warden, I appreciate everyone of you that read Big Is The New Small, the readers and subscribers are growing daily and the new look is being developed on the back end as we speak, the new logo, brand, tag line are done and I think it’s awesome, if you have not subscribed to this blog please do so, I have not done a random post like this in awhile it feels good to unleash what’s inside your head, I have a really great staff and the n-dub (our campus) is on fire right now, thank you God, sometimes in life you just have to sit back and realize that you are marvelously made and stop caring about what people think, they are just people and put their pants on every day just like you, you have got what it takes go do it, God does give an ear to your words, so seek him; I have alot more to say; however I need to go downstairs and register for this conference, #FistBump, Peace, I’m Out, Later and breathe. ahhh

When you read a statement like “The Trust Of Leadership” it draws out a wide range of emotions. Those emotions are derived from the types of experiences you’ve had with other leaders, your leadership and leadership in general. There are many leadership experts, authors and professionals that define the essence of leadership in varying fashions. I personally think the essence of leadership is Trust, “The Trust Of Leadership.”

We can break “The Trust Of Leadership” down into two simple categories:

The Team Trusts The Leader– This is one of the most important aspects of leadership, ensuring that a leader earns the trust of his/her team. Earn is the operative word; positional equity will only get you so far. In order for a leader to be truly successful they must have the relational equity in addition to the “Trust Equity” of their team members. Integrity, genuine care an concern for the team, proven track record success, boldness, no “yes man” syndrome… are just a few of the ways that a team will begin to truly trust a leader. ~The Trust of Leadership

The Leader Trusts The Team- This is probably the second most important aspect of leadership and its often over-looked and very rarely carried out. When I say trust your team that means believing in them so much that you don’t micro-manage, you get out of their way, you correct when necessary, you encourage them to lead up, you maximize their strengths and you watch them soar. I was reading George Barna’s new book Master Leaders and in one excerpt this question was asked of many leaders: “How does a leader gain people’s trust?” Seth Godin responded: “You have to trust them.” (That’s simple, but brilliant!) Ralph Winter added to Seth’s answer by stating this “Trust is letting people have as much rope as they need to be sure they feel good and can deliver the goods.” Actions speak louder than words, live out trusting your people. ~The Trust Of Leadership

I’m in no way saying I have all of the answers and I have this leadership thing figured out; however I am saying that leadership is based on trust. I’ve always tried to lead with integrity, care and concern; embracing the fact that if people don’t trust you, they won’t follow you. On the other hand, I truly believe in and trust my people. I trust them so much that they have no choice but to believe in and trust themselves. If I believe my team can fly, even if they can’t, they will get darn close. Help your team to soar, TRUST THEM!

What has been your experience on either side of “The Trust Of Leadership?” Share your thoughts!

This past weekend I was about this close to preaching entirely from my iPhone. In case you are wondering how close “This Close” is; put your index finger and your thumb about 1/2 inch from each other and that’s how close I was.

There are many different methods that pastors use when preaching a sermon, as it relates to their notes and Bibles. The various methods that Pastors use include, but are not limited to the following: notes in a notebook with the sermon fairly written out, mind-map style notes on a single piece of paper and Bible, moleskin notebook with written notes and Bible, notes placed inside of the Bible, no notes at all and the Bible and the list goes on and on.

Again I was considering using my handy dandy YouVersion Bible App for the iPhone as my preaching Bible and have my Sermon Notes as a document attachment; in other words going completely iPhone for the entire sermon. I decided not to experiment for this particular sermon; however I think I definitely will do so in the future. I’m old-school and new-school at the same time; I kinda like having my hardbound “Preaching Bible” in my hand.

What are your thoughts on The iPhone Preacher? Would this go over well with you and your church? Is this too new-school? Is this any different than the standard notebook and hardbound Bible? Has your Pastor preached from his/her iPhone? Questions, Questions, Questions?

10 Years from now this will be a non-issue; however I’d love to get your thoughts today… Chime In!

Last night I sent a simple tweet that asked a simple question, here is the tweet: Fill in the blank: “The Church Needs To [Fill In The Blank]”your @ replies will be a blog post! Thx Below will be a collage of words, phrases and thoughts from the many people that responded. Thanks again to everyone that responded.

The Church Needs To...

Tell The Truth! No sugar-coating, quit keeping people comfortable, start sharing & teaching The Word of God, Never, ever turn away a soul. Drop their Denominational handcuffs! Remember to never be judgemental. be more relevant, stop naming themselves “Amazing Grace” when they preach this: http://tinyurl.com/ygn4pxj, Create an authentic space for people to discover who Jesus really is and how much he loves them, wake up, step up, and reach out! The hurting are everywhere and they desperately need what we have! stop being a self-help/self-improvement social club & care about the lost right in their community, not just across the globe. Re-engage the culture. Introduce the culture to the relevance of the gospel, Disciple someone, and stop being satisfied with conversions alone! Grow Christ-followers. Truly diversify and become unified…you know, like Jesus desired in John 17. Disciple, quit keeping people comfortable! be unjudgemental.

The church is the hospital for all, promote radical compassion and unmerited grace for all. promote radical compassion and unmerited grace for all. learn what cast the first stone truly means…, DISPLAY GOD’S LOVE BY SERVING, To stop bashing each other (we’re all the Bride of Christ) over style issues, and be the force we’re supposed to be together!, Let people belong before they believe., Keep It Simple! “STOP WORRYING ABOUT BEING THE NEXT GREATEST COOLEST THING AND START STRIVING TO BE AN ACCEPTABLE BRIDE” love people more, accept them for who they are, like God accepts us, needs to be less like a business, More Authentic., be less judgmental, The Church Needs To BE THE CHURCH

“The church needs to – be the people of God, on the mission of God, reflecting the character of God!”

Do any of these above comments resonate with you? Do you have additional thoughts to add? The Church Needs To…

A commonly asked question amongst potential next-level leaders, high-level leaders and people in general is “Do I Have What It Takes?” Do I have What It Takes to take my leadership, craft, vision, skills… to the next level? There is definitely no easy answer to that question; however I believe that there are some signs that begin to reveal to individuals that they have what it takes.

Here are 5 Signs You’ve Got What It Takes:

Every once and awhile you question whether or not you have what it takes.

Those people closest to you are always encouraging you to do more, try more, be more and remind you that you have what it takes to go to the next-level.

When you look at others who are at that next-level; deep down inside you say “I can definitely do that and you know what, I might even be able to do it better.”

You are willing to get out of those self-imposed “Comfort Zones.”

You can look in the mirror and boldly say “I’ve Got What It Takes!”

One thing that is true about successful people is this: “At some point in time on a successful person’s journey, they began to truly believe that success was the only option.”

God Believes In You… It’s Time To Believe In Yourself. You’ve Got What It Takes!

Do You Have What It Takes? Share your thoughts on this list or add additional signs to the list.

The phrase “I Like Your Style!” is one of those seemingly un-meaningful phrases that is actually the ultimate compliment.

The word style is defined as: A particular, distinctive, or characteristic mode of action or manner of acting or execution.

By this definition when someone says, “I Like Your Style!” they are saying they like the manner in which you do what you do. We have all heard this phrase “It’s not what you say… it’s how you say it!” That phrase is very similar to “I Like Your Style!”

There are many different ways to lead, parent, teach, coach, preach, write, sing, draw, dress, paint… the important things is for individuals to find their style and execute those things in the manner in that’s unique to them. I have never heard someone say, “I Like The Fact That Your Style Is Identical to So and So’s!” Nope, you’re not going to hear that phrase often nor do you want to. You might get an every now and again “I Like Your Style, It’s Similar to So and So!” and that’s perfectly OK, we all have inspirations from outside sources and similarities to others. Find you and yours… MAKE IT YOUR OWN!

One of the many keys to Life is to find your style. Who knows someone may pay you the ultimate compliment and say, “I Like Your Style!”

“Do You! It’s A Statement… Not A Question!”

Have you recently or in the past, either been given or made this compliment to someone? Share your thoughts!